Doubleday Religion is Dead..but Image is Back!

The Crown Publishing Group has reorganized its religious publishing program, moving all of its Catholic books under the Image Books imprint and in the process doing away with the Doubleday Religion imprint. Under the reorganization, announced by Michael Palgon, senior v-p and deputy publisher of Crown, all Catholic-interest titles regardless of format will be overseen by Trace Murphy, editor-in-chief of Image. Murphy will now report to Steve Cobb, who adds the title of president and publisher of Image Books to his duties overseeing Waterbrook Multnomah, which is based in Colorado Springs.

While Image editorial, production and art will remain in New York, marketing, publicity, and sales administration will move to Colorado under the direction of Carie Freimuth, v-p, association publisher for Waterbrook Multnomah and Image. In making the announcement, Palgon noted “our Catholic-interest authors and books will benefit greatly from the keen strategic focus and innovative practices that Steve, Carie, and their team have developed, including Web-based direct-to-consumer and direct-to-church programs that will be adapted for the Catholic market.”

Image, along with Sheed & Ward, was Catholic trade publishing in the US until the 70’s. How many old Image paperbacks do you have stuck in your shelves? This is a great move – particularly bringing Image into relationship with Waterbrook Multnomah for the marketing aspect – Waterbrook, which has developed into a really fine, quality imprint over the past few years.

(Power of the Cross update: Smashwords has certainly grown in popularity since the first time I used it. I uploaded the book this morning and it was #536 in the publishing queue. Now it’s #125. We’ll get there. Smashwords edition will be able to be read on the Nook, as well as IBooks, I think. The Kindle edition is still “publishing.” Maybe before next Wednesday? Meanwhile, I have learned that the POC interviews will be posted on KVSS’ Kris McGregor’s blogDiscerning Hearts. So look for it there, when you look for it.

What about it? A big publisher like Crown/Doubleday (or WHATEVER it is) has several – a couple dozen, perhaps – imprints, all with different editorial missions. Image will be w/Waterbrook Multnomah in the context of marketing, not editorial content, an area at which CBA publishers are far better than most Catholic publishers. The whole question of 1) What “Catholic” books Catholics will pay to read and 2) How to tell them about them has been fraught for years. This is a good step toward figuring that out.

I became intersted in the Catholic faith at the tail end of the Golden Age of Image Books, when the tag line was “…making the world’s best Catholic literature available to all…”. Those little paperbacks were wonderful, and fit a college student’s budget.

No sooner did I become a Catholic (1967/1968) than the Silly Season gathered momentum, and Image Books could no longer necessarily be trusted. One of the worst was a book on Jesus by A.N. Wilson.

I really hope that the new incarnation of IB at Doubleday approaches the quality and good influence of the original.